How Tough is ToughStuff Really?

Our Operations Director has just sent back a few videos of him and the ToughStuff Asia team testing out the products. I think it's safe to say that we're obsessed with making products that are durable enough for Africa.

We could do this for hours...

ComputerTan.com - Amazing

Please, please go to www.computertan.com.

In London there are huge ComputerTan.com adverts all over. This is quite possibly the greatest marketing campaign in the history of marketing campaigns. This is soooooo funny.

Well done KAREN CLIFFORD SKIN CANCER CHARITY.

What? There is no way you could ever run across America

What? That is impossible. No man or woman could ever run that far. America is really long.

Running America. This crazy bastard's attempt to run across a country. A big one.

A good friend of mine, who knows the runner says, "Unlike most folks around these parts, that claim running or mountaineering mastery cuz they are getting their annual 5% discount from REI or can summit sanitas in under 30 mins, This dude is the real McCoy."

Check the site out and cheer him on.

The 7 Things You Must Research and Understand Before Starting a Microfinance Institution

I attended a great lecture today held at the University of Colorado at Boulder (where I completed my undergrad). Sousan Urroz-Korrori, a professor in Leeds School of Business, is teaching a semester long course on Microfinance.

The lecture discussed the 7 things you must research about a country before starting a Microfinance Institution (MFI):

1. Financial System - Is there access to capital from commercial banks or other institutions? How will you raise temporary working capital? What is the current infrastructure of finance organizations? Note that more regulation always leads to more expensive capital.
2. Government Position - How does the country view NGOs, foreigners and finance institutions? How does the government treat loans? Are there interest rate caps? Will you be allowed to mobilize savings?
3. Legal Environment - Are there laws in place for property rights? It's an virtual necessity that borrowers can own land AND have documentation to prove it. Is there transparency and honestly within the government?
   
4. Current Regulation - Or lack there of, that is. Is the Basel agreement followed? How is capital adequacy treated? Will your organization be subject to audits?
   
5. Macro Economic Conditions - Be sure to look at climate and natural disasters that may come into play. Will inflation be an issue? If so, you'll need to diligently consider loan date ranges, currencies and structures to protect both the MFI and borrowers. Is it a growing economy? This will generally lead to better opportunities.
   
6. Internal Risk - What will your management look like? You MUST have locals involved in (in charge of) operations; foreigners can not effectively understand the culture enough to be successful. How will you pay? Honesty is vital in this business, so plan on paying competitive rates and avoid bonuses for sales, members, etc.
7. UNDERSTAND YOUR CLIENT BASE - The most important point of the lecture. You MUST have a strong understanding of you borrowers and the local culture.
   

Where to find the answers to these questions? Start with the IMF reports. Be sure to look at the World Bank data as well. Professor Urroz-Korrori strongly suggested a 3 month visibility study into the country, region, people and potential projects before beginning an work as an MFI.

Unbelievable Social Start-Ups - Microfinance

Since starting some heavy research last month into the world of microfinance and microlending, I've becoming completely enthralled in the business of social start-ups. For anyone interested in the subject, I strongly recommend Muhammed Yunus' A World Without Poverty, The Power of Unreasonable People, and Eric Thurman's A Billion Bootstraps.

Here's a look at a few incredibly impressive start-ups that are working to increase the capital going microfinance organizations.

Kiva.org, the original peer-to-entrepreneur website for microlending, has been around since 2005. It's members now loan ~2 million dollars worth a week. Just last week they began repaying loans after every payment comes in from borrowers (through local MFIs).

This start-up is unbelievably well-run and easy to use. I'm an avid lender and a big supporter of the cause on facebook. Its remarkable success has led to other competitors entering the market, such as MicroPlace.com.

MicroPlace.com is an ebay project, launched last October, is also very well run. I made my first loan today which went very smoothly. A great explaination of the difference can be found on Next Billion Blog by Rob Katz.

There are lots of differences (and similarities) between the groups, but only one paradigm shifting difference. MicroPlace offers a return to its investor, while Kiva does not. The loan I placed today, for example, will return 2% on my loan. So which method is better, and what does this mean?

This difference really boils down to the difference between charities, social business and for-profit companies. Charities are always raising funds to support their cause. Hybrid charities may make some revenue but still seek outside investment. Social businesses are neither for-profit nor non-profits. Social business are businesses indeed, operating efficiently and competing with other business, often having investors and charging full rates for goods and services. They are not for-profits, however, in that they are working help a social cause and any dividends from the operation are reinvested into the business or returned to those in need (after investors are repaid, of course).

The question of "which is better" is really of question of which model does the most good. In the case of microfinance and microlending - the industry is limited primarily by capital constraints. Therefore, which ever model can raise the most capital is preferred. So which model will raise the most capital?

In that light, Kiva has a track record of much higher capital loaned so far. But it's been around years and was the first of its kind. Anyone know if MicroPlace is at the same place Kiva was 10 months in?

Long-term, however, MicroPlace's model of returning some interest to investor will probably be preferred. I already admitted today that it really helps getting interest back from the loans. Some may prefer the feeling helping more with no interest loans, especially since rates of 1% and 2% probably won't mean a new car, but these will be few, I suspect. Money always drives more interest (hence the dead-lock in the presidential race). Winner: MicroPlace.

Objectors would argue that interest returned to lendors puts another cost in the system, either charging borrowers more, thinning margins for local MFIs. While this is true, most MFIs recieving capital from either organization are self-sufficient social businesses or NGOs. They either willingly accept capital under these terms OR don't. And both Kiva and MicroPlace specifically refuse to work with MFIs that charge rates that are too high to be beneficial, or have other poor practices.

In the larger picture, this is another example of how more capital investment, talent and great ideas will flow into business and industries that have a higher return. Charities will always struggle more for funds, great people and innovative cultures. This capitalist logic says that for-profits will always be the most successful. A new line of thinking, however, would argue that social business can and will compete in the future, while serving some kind of social cause.

In the mean time, make a loan to one of these great start-ups, make a difference in the world. And let me know which one you pick.

50 Ways to Use Social Media from Chris Brogan

Great post this morning from Chris Brogan on how marketers can use social media. Also, I should say, I found this on Jeremy Owyang's blog first this morning. He went another step further and segmented the list into 5 groups. Catch that one here.

Idea #47, " Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen." Well, we're doing our part. Read the full post here.

From Chris Brogan:

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too. "

Thanks guys.

Oh no - I'm Dwight Shrewt, not Jim Halpert

Yes, I refer to all the characters from the TV show the office by their first names and treat them as friends. It's not uncommon for me to tell a friend, "That's something Pam would do," or, "Remember how Michael warms up for basketball games?"

Our office is increasingly similar to the office. Yesterday we found a bat in the office and had to capture it and let it free. Eerily similar to this office episode: http://youtube.com/watch?v=PFdVhRE3q7E.

My boss, Darren Kelly (aka Michael Scott), just wrote up a blog post detail the event. He says, "I walked into our new offices this morning (formerly Google's offices in Boulder) to find a team of Collective Intellect commando's attempting to capture a lost bat in one of our conference rooms."

Unfortunately, since Ricardo and I captured and released the bat, it means we're both our office's version of Dwight Shrewt. I was really hoping to be Jim Halpert, damn it. At least I didn't toss a bag over anyone's head with the bat in it.

Think I'm retarded? Well in the words of Michael Scott, "You don't call retarded people retards. It's bad taste. You call your friends retards when they are acting retarded."